Serious Eats: Talk

Weekend Cook and Tell: Meatless Mexican

Posted by Caroline Russock, Apr 13, 2011

Welcome to Weekend Cook and Tell. Every Wednesday we poke around the food sections of various national newspapers in search of inspiration for a weekend cooking project. We hope you'll cook along with us and share your experiences, recipes, and photos here.

This week in the Los Angeles Times, Lorenza Muñoz is talking about meatless Mexican cooking. Most of us think about Mexican as meat heavy with tacos filled with chunks of carnitas and charred strips of carne asada but vegetarian eating has a long history in Mexico dating back to the Mayans and Aztecs who subsisted on a diet heavy in fruits, vegetables, and grains. According to Muñoz, it wasn't until the Spanish arrived that the Mexican diet became so dependent on meat. In Mexico ingredients like huitlacoche, an almost truffle-like corn fungus and delicate squash blossoms are commonly used in tacos and quesadillas.

This week we want to hear your take on vegetarian Mexican cooking. Beans are an obvious jumping off point, black or refried, stuffed into tacos or spread on tostadas. Rajas are another classic—Poblano peppers sautéed with onions, and of course there's a wealth of incredible Mexican cheeses out there just waiting to become the centerpiece of a fantastic vegetarian meal. And don't forget chard, another common Mexican ingredient that we recently rolled into tacos de acelgas, little fried chard taquitos.

Show us photos of your sin carne creations on Photograzing (make sure to include "Cook and Tell" in your submission title), and tell us about your recipes here! If you'd like to blog the experience, please leave a link in the comments below. We'll post a round-up of your vegetariano recipes, ideas, and experiences next Wednesday.

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